Quotes & Sayings About Software Design

Your Web browser is Ronald Reagan. — Neal Stephenson

Software development is the process of creating a computer software.
It includes preparing a design, coding the program, and fixing the
bugs. The final goal of software development is to translate user
needs to software product, while continuously improving the team
and the process. — Paulo Caroli

Design Patterns - Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software — Erich Gamma

The lesson to be learned from this is that it is often undesirable to go for the right thing first. It is better to get half of the right thing available so that it spreads like a virus. Once people are hooked on it, take the time to improve it to 90% of the right thing. — Richard P. Gabriel

Best machine design firm at palladium-pdd

Palladium provides Machine Design services for automation assembly and special purpose machinery design that are modeled in 3D CAD software programs. — Andrea James

A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. — Fred Brooks

The only way to prove that your software is easy to change is to make easy changes to it. And when you find that the changes aren't as easy as you thought, you refine the design so that the next change is easier. When do you make these easy changes? All the time! Every time you look at a module you make small, lightweight changes to it to improve its structure. — Robert C. Martin

It has long been my personal view that the separation of practical and theoretical work is artificial and injurious. Much of the practical work done in computing, both in software and in hardware design, is unsound and clumsy because the people who do it have not any clear understanding of the fundamental design principles of their work. Most of the abstract mathematical and theoretical work is sterile because it has no point of contact with real computing. — Christopher Strachey

The critical thing in developing software is not the program, it's the design. It is translating understanding of user needs into something that can be realized as a computer program. — Mitch Kapor

No foreign architect of stature, such as I. M. Pei, resides in Japan. Foreign architects come to Japan on short-term contracts, erect a skyscraper or a museum, and then leave. But subtle and sophisticated approaches to services and design - the core elements of modern building technology - cannot be transmitted in this way. Japan is left with the empty shells of architectural ideas, the hardware without the software. — Alex Kerr

I have found that meditation has helped me with my academic career and has given me insights into musical composition and software design. — Frederick Lenz

The problem is, in software design, often the consequences of your decisions don't become apparent for years. — Kent Beck

The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out. — Donald A. Norman

I no longer teach meditation, only software design. — Frederick Lenz

I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency? — Jef Raskin

Software design as taught today is terribly incomplete. It talks only about what systems should do. It doesn't address the converse - things systems should not do. They should not crash, hang, lose data, violate privacy, lose money, destroy your company, or kill your customers. — Michael T. Nygard

The information contained in an English sentence or computer software does not derive from the chemistry of the ink or the physics of magnetism, but from a source extrinsic to physics and chemistry altogether. Indeed, in both cases, the message transcends the properties of the medium. The information in DNA also transcends the properties of its material medium. — Stephen C. Meyer

Received wisdom is that if you spend time up front getting the design right, you avoid costs later. But the longer you spend getting the design right, the more your upfront costs are, and the longer it takes for the software to start earning. — Kent Beck

Hiring people to write code to sell is not the same as hiring people to design and build durable, usable, dependable software. — Larry Constantine

In a biological system, the software builds its own hardware, but design is critical, and if you start with digital information, it has to be really accurate. — Craig Venter

Software architecture is the set of design decisions which, if made incorrectly, may cause your project to be cancelled. — Eoin Woods

In present-day Athens, women vote, are elected to public office, make speeches, design everything from jewellery to buildings to software, and go to university. — Yuval Noah Harari

So if you can figure out a way to get in a design war with a company big enough that its software is designed by product managers, they'll never be able to keep up with you. These opportunities are not easy to find, though. It's hard to engage a big company in a design war, just as it's hard to engage an opponent inside a castle in hand-to-hand combat. — Paul Graham

Just remember: you're not a 'dummy,' no matter what those computer books claim. The real dummies are the people who-though technically expert-couldn't design hardware and software that's usable by normal consumers if their lives depended upon it. — Walt Mossberg

...I'm not saying simple code takes less time to write. You'd think it would since you end up with less total code, but a good solution isn't an accretion of code, it's a distillation of it. — Robert Nystrom

While any software system introduces some kind of formalization of the world, HCI (like AI) deals with formalizations of human cognition and activity. These are the issues that have lay at the heart of philosophical debate for centuries. In some ways, it would be hard to imagine a more philosophical enterprise. — Paul Dourish

What would the world be like if you had to develop a power yourself before you could use it? Just as a silly example: How would the comment section on YouTube change if, to use it, you had to have the schooling necessary to have a basic understanding of how computers and the internet work? More seriously, would anyone smart enough to know how to design and build a tank, or a laser guided anti-aircraft missile, or a computer and video editing software be stupid enough to join ISIS? In fact, if such knowledge was required - would it even be possible for there to be standing armies? — John C. Wright

We had the hardware expertise, the industrial design expertise and the software expertise, including iTunes. One of the biggest insights we have was that we decided not to try to manage your music library on the iPod, but to manage it in iTunes. Other companies tried to do everything on the device itself and made it so complicated that it was useless. — Steve Jobs

The basic problem is that web 2.0 tools are not supportive of democracy by design. They are tools designed to gather spy-agency-like data in a seductive way, first and foremost, but as a side effect they tend to provide software support for mob-like phenomena. — Jaron Lanier

As for a picture, if it isn't worth a thousand words, the hell with it. — Ad Reinhardt

The essence of a software entity is a construct of interlocking concepts: [ ... ] I believe the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of this conceptual construct, not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation. — Fred Brooks

There are lots of examples of routine, middle-skilled jobs that involve relatively structured tasks, and those are the jobs that are being eliminated the fastest. Those kinds of jobs are easier for our friends in the artificial intelligence community to design robots to handle them. They could be software robots; they could be physical robots. — Erik Brynjolfsson

With proper design, the features come cheaply. This approach is arduous, but continues to succeed. — Dennis Ritchie

There is a lot of interest in the arts, music, theatre, filmmaking, engineering, architecture and software design. I think we have now transitioned the modern-day version of the entrepreneur into the creative economy. — John Baldacci

It is sad that so many designers don't know how to make. CAD software can make a bad design look palatable! It is sad that four years can be spent on a 3D design course without making anything! People who are great at designing and making have a great advantage. — Jonathan Ive

... what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil. Of course, the snake oil has the most impressive names - otherwise you would be selling nothing - like "Structured Analysis and Design", "Software Engineering", "Maturity Models", "Management Information Systems", "Integrated Project Support Environments" "Object Orientation" and "Business Process Re-engineering". — Edsger Dijkstra

I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
The first method is far more difficult. It demands the same skill, devotion, insight, and even inspiration as the discovery of the simple physical laws which underlie the complex phenomena of nature. It also requires a willingness to accept objectives which are limited by physical, logical, and technological constraints, and to accept a compromise when conflicting objectives cannot be met. No committee will ever do this until it is too late. — C.A.R. Hoare

Worse yet is the rejection of upfront requirements. The basic observation is correct: requirements will change, and are hard anyway to capture at the beginning. In no way, however, does it imply the dramatic conclusion that upfront requirements are useless! What it does imply is that requirements should be subject to change, like all other artifacts on the software process.

[...]

The agile advice here is irresponsible and serious software projects should ignore it.The sound practice is to start collecting requirements at the beginning, produce a provisional version prior to engaging in design, and treat the requirements as a living product that undergoes constant adaptation throughout the project. — Bertrand Meyer

If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person. — Alan Cooper

Truth can only be found in one place: the code. — Robert C. Martin

Find the simplest model that is not a lie is the key to better software design. — David Parnas

Building on our successful partnership, we can now bring together the best of Microsoft's software engineering with the best of Nokia's product engineering, award-winning design, and global sales, marketing and manufacturing, — Stephen Elop

There's an old joke among software developers. When something works in an unexpected but strangely effective way, the developers often kid, "Oh, that's not a bug. That's a future." While this is usually a joke, designers can use the same technique of reframing the problem when tackling their own projects. In fact, there's an old joke among designers: "It's not a problem. It's an opportunity. — Dan Saffer

We see a lot of feature-driven product design in which the cost of features is not properly accounted. Features can have a negative value to customers because they make the products more difficult to understand and use. We are finding that people like products that just work. It turns out that designs that just work are much harder to produce that designs that assemble long lists of features. — Douglas Crockford

It's hard to read through a book on the principles of magic without glancing at the cover periodically to make sure it isn't a book on software design. — Bruce Tognazzini

Really successful designs can be created without software produced "special effects." Identities do not NEED bevels, gradations, 3-D imagery, Web 2.Oh-Oh and other oh so "special" treatments to be great design solutions for clients. — Jeff Fisher

The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation. — Donald Knuth

One of the great enemies of design is when systems or objects become more complex than a person - or even a team of people - can keep in their heads. This is why software is generally beneath contempt. — Bran Ferren

DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. — Bill Gates

Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy. — Bill Gates

The hardware and the software will come from Silicon Valley. But the watch case, the dial, the design, the idea, the crown, that part of the watch will, of course, be Swiss. — Jean-Claude Biver

There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors. — Tony Hoare

Walking is a skill that took millions of years for us to develop. If you wanted to design a robot that could walk as well as a person, this would be fantastically complicated software. It would have to be doing billions of calculations with every step. — David Pogue

In short, capitalism depends on ever-growing amounts of state intervention in the market for its survival, and the system is hitting the point where the teat runs dry.

The result is a system in which governments and corporations are increasingly hollowed out. And meanwhile, growing up within this corporate capitalist "integument," things like open source software and culture, open-source industrial design, permaculture and low-overhead garage micromanufacturing eat the corporate-state economy alive. An ever-growing share of labor and production are disappearing into relocalized resilient economies, self-employment, worker cooperatives and the informal and household economy. In the end, they will skeletonize the corporate dinosaurs like a swarm of piranha. — Kevin A. Carson

Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry — Ted Nelson

Up to a point, it is better to just let the snags [bugs] be there than to spend such time in design that there are none. — Alan Turing

The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music, not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy and astronomical calculations. — Vitruvius

Listening, Testing, Coding, Designing. That's all there is to software. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. — Kent Beck

The most important driver of user satisfaction is usefulness, which is largely reflected in the interaction design. The interaction design has to be incorporated at the deepest level of the software architecture and it is often the most expensive to change late in the process. — Arnie Lund

The payoff of a customer-centric approach to software and digital product design is substantial and long-lasting for both companies and their customers. — Alan Cooper

Object-oriented programming as it emerged in Simula 67 allows software structure to be based on real-world structures, and gives programmers a powerful way to simplify the design and construction of complex programs. — David Gelernter

Today I am more convinced than ever. Conceptual integrity is central to product quality. Having a system architect is the most important single step toward conceptual integrity. These principles are by no means limited to software systems, but to the design of any complex construct, whether a computer, an airplane, a Strategic Defense Initiative, a Global Positioning System. After teaching a software engineering laboratory more than 20 times, I came to insist that student teams as small as four people choose a manager and a separate architect. Defining distinct roles in such small teams may be a little extreme, but I have observed it to work well and to contribute to design success even for small teams. — Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

You should never be able to reverse engineer a company's organizational chart from the design of its product. Can you figure out who reigns supreme at Apple when you open the box for your new iPhone? Yes. It's you, the customer; not the head of software, manufacturing, retail, hardware, apps, or the Guy Who Signs the Checks. That is exactly as it should be. — Eric Schmidt

I am a design chauvinist. I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don't, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried. That's why programming - or buying software - on the basis of "lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess. — Ted Nelson

Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him- the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store-he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something - a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug- he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say no. He got Apple back on track by cutting all except a few core products. He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options.
He attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism. — Walter Isaacson

There's a fundamental problem with how the software business does things. We're asking people who are masters of hard-edged technology to design the soft, human side of software as well. As a result, they make products that are really cool - if you happen to be a software engineer. — Alan Cooper

A rational model of software is to design it quickly - the economic pressure to improvise presents an interesting challenge. — Kent Beck

When you see the right thing, do it - this may look like more work in the short term, but it's the path of least effort in the long run. If you don't know what the right thing is, do the minimum necessary to get the job done, at least until you figure out what the right thing is. To do the Unix philosophy right, you have to be loyal to excellence. You have to believe that software design is a craft worth all the intelligence, creativity, and passion you can muster. Otherwise you won't look past the easy, stereotyped ways of approaching design and implementation; you'll rush into coding when you should be thinking. You'll carelessly complicate when you should be relentlessly simplifying - and then you'll wonder why your code bloats and debugging is so hard. — Eric S. Raymond

Software will give you respect, but hardware will give you the Power. — Akshat Paul

The Core Debugging Process
The core of the debugging process consists of four steps:
Reproduce:
Find a way to reliably and conveniently reproduce the problem on demand.

Report erratum Prepared exclusively for castLabs GmbH this copy is (P2.0 printing, February 2010)
FIRST THINGS FIRST 18
Diagnose:
Construct hypotheses, and test them by performing experiments until you are confident that you have identified the underlying cause of the bug.
Fix:
Design and implement changes that fix the problem, avoid intro- ducing regressions, and maintain or improve the overall quality of the software.
Reflect:
Learn the lessons of the bug. Where did things go wrong? Are there any other examples of the same problem that will also need fixing? What can you do to ensure that the same problem doesn't happen again? — Paul Butcher

Follow your dreams wherever they lead you and pay for those dreams with good jobs in software programming and computer design! — Frederick Lenz

l'after-shave, le badge, le barbeque, le best-seller, le blue-jean, le blues, le bluff, le box-office, le break, le bridge, le bulldozer, le business, le cake, la call-girl, le cashflow, le check-in, le chewing-gum, le club, le cocktail, la cover-girl, le cover-story, le dancing, le design, le discount, le do-it-yourself, le doping, le fan, le fast-food, le feedback, le freezer, le gadget, le gangster, le gay, le hall, le handicap, le hold-up, le jogging, l'interview, le joker, le kidnapping, le kit, le knock-out, le label, le leader, le look, le manager, le marketing, le must, les news, le parking, le pickpocket, le pipeline, le planning, le playboy, le prime time, le pub, le puzzle, se relaxer, le self-service, le software, le snack, le slogan, le steak, le stress, le sweatshirt, le toaster and le week-end. — Alexis Munier

Software and hardware design is less different than software designers think, but more different than hardware designers think. — Fred Brooks

Hey, I'm a good software engineer, but I'm not exactly known for my fashion sense. White socks and sandals don't translate to 'good design sense'. — Linus Torvalds